Tic Toc...

...goes the clock.  I'm sitting here in my daughter's living room listening to her noisy wall clock count the seconds.  I'm here helping her to adjust to New Mommy Life after bringing our latest grandchild home from the hospital yesterday and in between laundry, cooking, and baby burping I've had a fair amount of quiet time to spend thinking while Melanie and Kali catch a few much needed winks. My philosophical ruminations have yielded the following conclusions so far:

1.  A lot of people never go cruising because of grandbabies.
2.  A lot of people never go cruising because of the unhappiness of one spouse (usually the female) with The Plan.
3.  A lot of people wait till it's too late to go cruising and then can't because of illness or disability of some kind intervenes.
4.  A lot of people  never go cruising because they get caught up in the endless and insidious responsibilities of daily living and before they know it, it's too late to go cruising.
5.  A lot of people (mostly the female gender) never go cruising  because they have lived their entire lives for other people and out of some misguided obligation rooted deeply in guilt, find themselves unable to latch onto a dream of their own, believing they don't deserve it.

While Tim has fostered the dream of flying since he was 5, I have never had a dream, content to simply follow along and enable his, or those of my kids, for the 35 years of our marriage.

Then I went sailing.

And now I have a dream.

The dream is simply mine, although I'm fortunate enough to have a man who is eager to share it.  And while I'm enjoying every minute of each of my 5 grandkids' visits, there will soon come a time when the only clock I have will be the one I use to navigate.